Combat position on Iraq

E-mail sent to representative Neugebauer:

I read your latest newsletter. I'm sorry to say it's completely wrong. You need to reevaluate your position after you think a bit about the human characteristics of people in general and our responsibility to others.

We have been in Iraq for many years, during which time we have accomplished very little. The basis of the difficulty is that we started on a program of nation building and physically overthrew Saddam Hussein. We may have thought that would be helpful to the Iraqi people at the time, and we then had the resources to do it. The situation has changed. In the subsequent years, we have learned that the Iraqi people do not want our help, unless it's to receive free goodies, much like the US Democrats appeal to ignorant voters. In both cases, the character of the people is destroyed. In addition, ridiculous government spending at home has put us in a quasi-bankrupt position, and unless we make some basic, quick changes, we will completely destroy our power to lead and economically benefit our own citizens. This is much the same as the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and even more recently the British Empire.

Some fast answers are: Only the Iraqi people can take the action necessary to stop the internal slaughter of their own people. Groups naturally fight each other for power, but they will likely eventually come to realize that their own deaths and deaths of their family members are too great a price to pay.

We cannot afford to continue maintenance of 50,000 troops in Iraq, whether in combat or advisory roles. You know the old saying, "put your money where your mouth is". If the Iraqis want our help, they will pay for it. If the do not want to pay, they will be saying they don't need us, and we should go home.

A political motivation on the part of the US Government for the invasion of Iraq was to convert one country, in the center of the Arab world, to a Democracy, which would then spread to its neighbor. We see now that this was a futile dream, in the same vein as reestablishing Camelot. The Arab world has a well-established political and cultural system. You may not like it, but we have no right to force them to change. Do you want to ban the Italians from speaking their language. If so, what about diversity? Do you want everyone to march to the same beat of the drummer? Doesn't this sound like Socialism, which we know always fails?

Some have said we need a military presence in the Middle East to protect ourselves from terrorists, who are being trained there. Hog wash! We are talking about small groups of insurgent types. We have them in the US and probably in the same number. These people are controlled here by local, state, and federal law enforcement. The same can take place abroad. If foreign governments appear uncooperative, for whatever reason, we can try to convince them through the use of national sanctions, and I do not mean involving the UN. As a final measure, we can control terrorist training camps through surgical military strikes using guided missiles or oven old fashioned plane bombing. Remember that in WW II, Allied planes wiped out Germanys' complete industrial complex.

I think I've covered the major points, but feel free to ask about anything I have missed. Get our military out of Iraq, unless the Iraqi's want to pay for its presence. Collect information concerning terrorists against the US by use of on-the ground CIA operatives (spies) and use military strikes against training camps and headquarters as appropriate. Let Iraqis and others take care of their own terrorists. Leave the Arabs and any other world segment to their own devices, unless they are an obvious threat to US life and limb, or economic security. We actually have more to worry about from our own government on the last point.

Oh! And one more. It should not be our goal to have the world population like us. What we want is respect for our national example and the good leadership we show. My best teachers were not people that I liked. I respected them and now appreciate what they did for me through the examples they set. Not because we had silly fun together. Also forget the "world order", equalization of world income, and Obama's dream of being World Emperor.